Monday, May 13, 2013

How to Kill a Vampire (Series)
Ending a successful book franchise can be messy.
Why fans are outraged by Charlaine Harris's decision to wrap up the Sookie Stackhouse series.

It's hard to kill a vampire.

Five years ago, Charlaine Harris tried to kill Bill Compton, a handsome, brooding vampire in her best-selling supernatural mystery series. She fatally wounded him with a sword in book nine. But her editor fought back. HBO was launching "True Blood," a TV show based on Ms. Harris's books. Killing off a main character and romantic lead could damage the franchise at a moment when millions of new readers were discovering it. Ms. Harris rewrote the scene. Bill got bitten and poisoned, but stayed undead for four more books.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

I feel a little like a vampire rising from a hidey hole after a long night’s rest posting on the blog again
…but I felt like I had to say how pissed off I am at the ridiculous BULLSHIT I’ve been reading about fans threatening Charlaine Harris and threatening suicide and how poor Charlaine has had to move from her home to be safe.

She reports being hounded online, in person and by email by 'fans ' saying they will kill her or themselves because of the way the series ended or because she ended the series .

I have posted links to a few article below if you haven’t read about this stuff.
How effing pathetic .. these are NOT the Sookie/ True Blood fans I came to know and love over the 4 years I wrote this blog, did the weekly Blogtalk radio show and met and traveled with all over the country.

We have known for years the series would end this year and we knew Charlaine had to move her creative juices on to the next project and that’s OK.

Sure it’s sad to lose our annual visits with the Bon Temps gang but it’s just time …

I think I have ALWAYS known how the series would end, I don’t know why and if you read the blog or listened to the radio show you know I said what a thought a few times and I won’t be a spoiler it here now, but this ending always seemed right for Sookie.

I LOVED the book, I couldn’t wait --I downloaded the eBook at midnight and dove right in.
I was so glad to be with Sookie again for her last book and although the book had it's rough points there were such great flashes of Charlaine’s amazing wit and wonderful details and descriptions.

I was so glad to be once again inside Sookie’s head ( always loved the unique first person ) wonderful wisdom, loyalty and humor.

I was thinking as I was reading this last book that after 5 years of True Blood when I read a Sookie book I never NEVER picture the actors ( all excellent ) who play the characters on the HBO TV show

I see Sookie as Lesi Desimini always drew her on the amazing book covers and when I hear Sookie talk in my head I hear her as the amazing voice actor, Johanna Parker always voiced her in the audio books. ( if you haven’t listened to audio book you have a pleasant 13 book adventure ahead of you ! )

I think this may be the key to this over the top “ shipper’ response to the books ending and directions of the storylines in the books. You have to keep the TV series and the books separate in your mind and you have to realize there are lots of folks that don’t think the way you do and respect them as equal fans !
Most of all you should be eternally grateful to the amazing and wonderful Charlaine Harris for bring us these great characters, stories and for sharing them with us for all these years.

Monday, October 29, 2012

DEAD EVER AFTER

DEAD EVER AFTER, which will be on the shelves May 7, 2013, has the best cover ever. Lisa Desimini has given my books a distinctive look from the very beginning with DEAD UNTIL DARK. I'm so glad she's still with me for the last book in the series. I hope all my readers will have fun speculating over the artwork and debating what may happen in the next Sookie. Most of all, I hope you enjoy the book when you read it.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

I'm very excited about the return of True Blood and hope Season 5 will be another blockbuster success !
Many of you have contacted me about whether I'd be bringing back Talk Blood Radio / Blogtalk Sunday night's following the TB episodes.

I so appreciate everyone's loyalty and generosity but I needed to raise about $700+ last summer (raffle, sponsorships, donations) and that just barely covered all the expenses including the raffle.
I'm just not sure I want all the work the show takes and all the fundraising needed to pay for the darn thing. So I think maybe it's time to stop doing Talk Blood. ;-(

Thanks so much to everyone for all they've done to make it fun to do and such a great live show and podcast.

Special thanks to all my guest hosts from the past 4 years ; The Twitter Sookie (Lisa) formerly known as @SookieBonTemps , Andy & Brian of Camp Blood, Mark Blankenship of The Critical Condition, Jefwithonef of the Houston Press and Meredith Warner of io9.com. I always said the quality of the guests and the wonderful and funny insight they offered us each week really made the show. I just facilitated it ! Thanks also to all the live show callers, the amazing chat room and the wonderful advertisers !

I do plan on doing a little blogging during the season, and I'll see all ya'll out on the Twitterverse.
Maybe for the 1st time in 5 years old Dallas will just put her feet up, grab a cold one and just sit and enjoy the season right along with you.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer's reps have confirmed the two are expecting a vampire baby, EW.com reports.
This is the first pregnancy for Paquin, 29. Moyer, 42, has two children, ages 10 and 11, from a previous relationship.
It is unknown whether the fetus will attempt to drink all of Anna Paquin's potent fairy blood while it is inside of her. Congratulations, hookahs.

The author who invented the vampire story thought he was being funny.
“The Vampyre,” first published anonymously in 1819, was taken to be the work of the famous poet (and early 19th-century equivalent of a tabloid celebrity) Lord Byron, but turned out to be by Byron’s personal physician (and devoted hanger-on), Dr. John Polidori.
Its plot nugget was by Byron, in an uncompleted story dashed off for that ghost-story competition Mary Shelley (then Mary Godwin) won with Frankenstein, but Polidori worked it up into something publishable which, nearly two centuries on, remains smart, tart and readable

[JACKSON] Male, Caucasian. 50s. Seen in flashback to the late 1980s, he’s a giant of a man, powerful and inspiring and heroic. In the present, however, he’s a sad, old man who’s given up on life. Recurring. Guest star. (20)

I love the Sookie Stackhouse series. I’m an unabashed Charlaine Harris fan girl. I know there are a lot of others out there like me. We have our own club. There’s a secret handshake. I know you’re all dying to join (bad pun intended). We’ll be accepting new members from 1st May. (Yes, that’s an awful plug for the publication date of Deadlocked)

However, I, like many other Sookie Stackhouse fans, have felt a sense of longing over the last few books. I’ve wondered where this story is going. I’ve missed the old Sookie. Her trademark wit, humour and Southern grace have been subdued in the last few books, understandably, due to the crushing events in the previous books. I’ve tired a bit of Eric. Yeah, at first I was Team Eric, but now, I dunno. I’m not sure what Sookie sees in him. The constant manipulations, the unreliability of his character and his inability to understand her feelings and her mortality made me doubt him. Even if he is a scorching hot Viking.

As I was getting ready to work on the marketing campaign for Deadlocked I asked Gillian if I could read the manuscript early. I wanted to get a sense of where this book was going. I wanted to get my head around the best way to present this book to Sookie fans. I also wanted to find out what happens to create a trailer—our first ever UK book trailer— for Deadlocked. (I know! I’m excited to share this with you too!)

Friday, March 23, 2012

God, I love Johanna Parker reading Sookie books - if you haven heard an audio book buy one today! Links to all them on the right -->

Live Oak Studio in Berkeley, California has just completed recording of the audiobook version of the hotly anticipated 12th novel in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries series, the inspiration for HBO’s hit series True Blood. The audiobook, narrated by Johanna Parker, will be released May 1.

Trubies rejoice: the next book in the Southern Vampire Mysteries series (aka the Sookie Stackhouse series) is almost here. The audiobook of Deadlocked, the 12th novel in the bestselling series by Charlaine Harris, was recently recorded at Live Oak Studio in Berkeley, California. The book was narrated by actress Johanna Parker, who has also been the voice of all 11 previous Sookie Stackhouse audiobooks.
“It was such a thrill to hear Johanna narrate the new book,” says Priscilla Rice, owner of the suburban San Francisco recording studio. “I don’t want to give anything away, but this book is packed with the action and romance Charlaine Harris writes so well.”
This is the first of the Southern Vampire Mysteries to be recorded at Live Oak Studio. Parker was introduced to the San Francisco area recording studio when she directed Alice Walker reading the Color Purple there in 2009. She was impressed with the sound quality of the studio and the expertise of the staff, so she and her publisher, Recorded Books, chose Live Oak Studio to record Deadlocked.